After coming off a dream return to the FIA Formula 1 World Championship with a fifth place finish at Bahrain, Kevin Magnussen had a disappointing start to the first two practice sessions in Jeddah for the upcoming Saudi Arabia Grand Prix on Sunday.
Round two of the Formula 1 season commenced with practice on Friday at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit as teams prepare for Sunday’s 50 lap race. This is the second ever visit to the street circuit for the series and the first for Kevin Magnussen, who couldn’t have got off to a more challenging start.
Magnussen was limited to just two laps in practice one before a hydraulic leak resulted in his VF-22 remaining in the garage for repairs.
It went from bad to worse for Magnussen and the Haas F1 team at practice two, set under the lights in Jeddah as the Dane was forced to retire his car on track with further mechanical issues. He had yet to clock a flying lap on his fresh Red soft tires with his previous best lap of 1:32.344 coming on his starting medium set and in doing so, put him right at the bottom of the pack.
After practice, Magnussen summed up how both sessions went for him with a positive attitude as he now looks ahead to Saturday with confidence.
“It wasn’t ideal to get the limited running but on the laps I did have, the car didn’t feel too bad. I’m just hoping for a consistent practice tomorrow – get some more laps in, then qualifying and then we can use some of Mick’s experience on the long runs to get ready for the race.
“It’s a great track, super high-speed and there’s a lot of action so I’m looking forward to more running tomorrow.”
Schumacher – “Good things were learned” as he hopes to build on his best ever finish in F1 last time around
Mick Schumacher had a more productive and better practice sessions than his team-mate. In practice one, Schumacher recorded 22 laps across the hour. The German started on the Pirelli P Zero White hard tyre before changing to the Yellow medium compound on which he set a lap time of 1:34.429, putting him in nineteenth.
However, Mick improved in practice two as he enjoyed a clear run in the session, completing 27 laps. An early stint on the hard compound was followed by a qualifying sim on the soft rubber tyre. Schumacher set a fastest lap of 1:31.169 which improved his position in the days standings to thirteenth.
Afterwards, Mick talked about what the team learnt after an unfortunate day for his team-mate and the positives of the car as they head into Saturday’s third practice and qualifying.
“Good things were learned. Obviously, it was unfortunate that not both cars were able to run, so hopefully that will get better in the future. I think that overall, we know what we have as a package and it’s up to us now to put it all together.”
Credit: Haas F1 Team Media
